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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Snowshoe who wrote (49843)	10/6/2002 8:21:32 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The implication is clear: The United States is flying blind in the Middle East. An easy charge to make but a hard one to justify. Even a successful intelligence operation will miss some attacks. (As the Israelis do, though their success rate has risen now that the West Bank is no longer a safe area for the terrorists) It's very hard to figure out what would have happened without the intelligence operation. Certainly we in the public don't have enough information to tell. It is interesting that a French target was picked, whether they meant to or not. One would have thought that they would have tried to avoid European targets. Maybe they're just not very bright about Western politics.

To: Snowshoe who wrote (49843)	10/6/2002 8:42:24 PM
From: Eashoa' M'sheekha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>>Some interesting conclusions on today's Yemen incident<< Hi Snowshoe.How are things " UP NORTH ". I don't get to say that too often on SI! heh heh I've been hearing that the small boat that was approaching the ship was carrying the harbour pilot, who usually boards these vessels and pilots them to docking. Hey!There's a madman sharp-shooter running around DC, and the first thing everyone thought was terrorists , probably of the darker skinned variety. But that is beginning to look like a possible X-military type of scenario.The shooter is moving and still using the same weapon, meaning he/she wants us to know what we are dealing with. I guess everything that could be attributed to terrorist activity will be the first choice till things get back to normal,whatever that " normal " will be.

To: Snowshoe who wrote (49843)	10/7/2002 4:49:18 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Captain of French tanker rejected Yemeni help, Washington says explosion likely originated in tanker story.news.yahoo.com [ interesting "conclusions" from stratfor, indeed. Maybe they're jealous of debka getting all the bogus "scoops" lately. Not that it would be possible to put a damper on the "War Now!" cries that attend every little incident around here, but just to round out the record a little . . . ] The captain of a French oil tanker that exploded and caught fire off Yemen initially rejected help by local authorities, Yemeni officials said Monday. A U.S. official said the damage suggests an accidental cause was more likely than terrorism. In Washington, a senior State Department official said U.S. Navy (news - web sites) officers were being sent to the scene to help out with the investigation. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it looked as though the Sunday explosion aboard the tanker Limburg occurred inside the tanker. The damage suggested that "things were blown out" from the tanker instead of the other way around, the official said. The United States is not ruling out terrorism as a cause. But if initial suspicions that it was an internal explosion are borne out, that would "lead to the conclusion that it probably was an accident," the official said. . . .

To: Snowshoe who wrote (49843)	10/7/2002 5:05:15 PM
From: maceng2	Respond to of 281500

Damage to French oil tanker 'likely to be accidental' ananova.com The damage to a French oil tanker which exploded off the Yemeni coast suggests an accidental cause was more likely than terrorism, a US official has said. He said it looked as though the blast aboard the Limburg occurred inside the tanker. The damage suggested "things were blown out" from the tanker instead of the other way around, the official said. He added US Navy officers are being sent to the scene to investigate the scene. The captain of a French oil tanker that exploded and caught fire off Yemen initially rejected help by local authorities, Yemeni officials said Monday. In Yemen, a government official said the French captain kept rejecting the offer to help for four hours after the blast. The official said this indicated to him that the accident was not a terrorist attack. Earlier, France's foreign minister said that the possibility that the fire was deliberate has not been ruled out. The Yemeni official said the government was blaming the company that owns the Limburg, Euronav, for what he described as a "premature announcement that the blaze was caused by a deliberate act." Officials with Euronav said their understanding was that the captain saw a small fishing boat pulling up to the tanker before the Sunday morning blast. The officials speculated the fishing boat could not have caused such a huge blast unless it was carrying explosives. There were also reports the explosion occurred as a pilot boat was preparing to escort the tanker into Mina al-Dabah. Story filed: 20:14 Monday 7th October 2002